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<h1><a name="SECTION0024200000000000000000">
22.2 <tt class="module">shlex</tt> --
         Simple lexical analysis</a>
</h1>

<p>
<a name="module-shlex"></a>

<p>

<span class="versionnote">New in version 1.5.2.</span>

<p>
The <tt class="class">shlex</tt> class makes it easy to write lexical analyzers for
simple syntaxes resembling that of the <span class="Unix">Unix</span> shell.  This will often
be useful for writing minilanguages, (for example, in run control
files for Python applications) or for parsing quoted strings.

<p>
<span class="note"><b class="label">Note:</b>
The <tt class="module">shlex</tt> module currently does not support Unicode input.</span>

<p>
The <tt class="module">shlex</tt> module defines the following functions:

<p>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
  <td><nobr><b><tt id='l2h-4911' xml:id='l2h-4911' class="function">split</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
  <td><var>s</var><big>[</big><var>, comments</var><big>]</big><var></var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
Split the string <var>s</var> using shell-like syntax. If <var>comments</var> is
<tt class="constant">False</tt> (the default), the parsing of comments in the given
string will be disabled (setting the <tt class="member">commenters</tt> member of the
<tt class="class">shlex</tt> instance to the empty string).  This function operates
in POSIX mode.

<span class="versionnote">New in version 2.3.</span>

</dl>

<p>
The <tt class="module">shlex</tt> module defines the following class:

<p>
<dl><dt><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="baseline">
  <td><nobr><b><span class="typelabel">class</span>&nbsp;<tt id='l2h-4912' xml:id='l2h-4912' class="class">shlex</tt></b>(</nobr></td>
  <td><var></var><big>[</big><var>instream</var><big>[</big><var>,
			 infile</var><big>[</big><var>, posix</var><big>]</big><var></var><big>]</big><var></var><big>]</big><var></var>)</td></tr></table></dt>
<dd>
A <tt class="class">shlex</tt> instance or subclass instance is a lexical analyzer
object.  The initialization argument, if present, specifies where to
read characters from. It must be a file-/stream-like object with
<tt class="method">read()</tt> and <tt class="method">readline()</tt> methods, or a string (strings
are accepted since Python 2.3). If no argument is given, input will be
taken from <code>sys.stdin</code>.  The second optional argument is a filename
string, which sets the initial value of the <tt class="member">infile</tt> member.  If
the <var>instream</var> argument is omitted or equal to <code>sys.stdin</code>,
this second argument defaults to ``stdin''.  The <var>posix</var> argument
was introduced in Python 2.3, and defines the operational mode.  When
<var>posix</var> is not true (default), the <tt class="class">shlex</tt> instance will
operate in compatibility mode.  When operating in POSIX mode,
<tt class="class">shlex</tt> will try to be as close as possible to the POSIX shell
parsing rules.  See section&nbsp;<a href="shlex-objects.html#shlex-objects">22.2.1</a>.
</dl>

<p>
<div class="seealso">
  <p class="heading">See Also:</p>

  <dl compact="compact" class="seemodule">
    <dt>Module <b><tt class="module"><a href="module-ConfigParser.html">ConfigParser</a></tt>:</b>
    <dd>Parser for configuration files similar to the
                           Windows <span class="file">.ini</span> files.
  </dl>
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<span class="release-info">Release 2.5.1, documentation updated on 18th April, 2007.</span>
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